According to a new poll conducted on behalf of a few reproductive rights organizations, 68 percent of female voters firmly reject Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood’s argument, saying companies shouldn’t be allowed refuse to cover contraception in their health plans — and more than half disagree strongly. Eighty-four percent agree that the choice about using birth control should be a personal decision and a woman’s boss should not be able to interfere with it.

The poll shows that support for no-copay birth control coverage is strong — and non-partisan. A huge 81 percent of respondents said they agree with the contraception mandate, including 92 percent of Democrats, 83 percent of independents, 63 percent of Republicans, and 79 percent of Catholics.

There also seems to be widespread agreement that religious freedom doesn’t give companies the right to infringe on other people’s rights more generally. Hardly surprising, given this is traditionally how Americans have viewed religious freedom in our pluralistic society. (As Loretta Ross pointed out in our Google Hangout yesterday, freedom from religion is an important part of religious liberty.) Roughly 80 percent said businesses also shouldn’t be able to refuse to serve or hire LGBTQ folks and pharmacies shouldn’t be able to refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control.

The thing about human rights is that they shouldn’t be dependent on public opinion (that’s kinda the point) but it’s still nice to be reminded just how far outside the mainstream these birth control-hating religious extremists really are. Birth control — and a belief that religious liberty ends where others’ rights begin — is as American as apple pie.

St. Paul, MN

Maya Dusenbery is executive director in charge of editorial at Feministing. She is the author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick (HarperOne, March 2018). She has been a fellow at Mother Jones magazine and a columnist at Pacific Standard magazine. Her work has appeared in publications like Cosmopolitan.com, TheAtlantic.com, Bitch Magazine, as well as the anthology The Feminist Utopia Project. Before become a full-time journalist, she worked at the National Institute for Reproductive Health. A Minnesota native, she received her B.A. from Carleton College in 2008. After living in Brooklyn, Oakland, and Atlanta, she is currently based in the Twin Cities.

Maya Dusenbery is an executive director of Feministing and author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm on sexism in medicine.

The Senate will vote to strip health care from millions in about 48 hours. This is not a drill.

Yesterday, Senate Republicans voted to proceed to debate on their taxcuts-for-billionaires“healthcare” bill. Does that mean they’ll release a bill on which to have public hearings and town halls? Nope. In Senate parliamentary language, that means they’ve started the process to vote on the bill this week.

According to a stunning estimate from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the GOP “health care bill” gives America’s 400 wealthiest households alone a $33 billion tax break – equivalent to the cost of Medicaid for 725,800 low-income Americans.

The Senate is said to have pushed the vote on their “Better Care Reconciliation Act” (BCRA) until after the July 4th recess. I say: good. It’s a bad bill that has nothing to do with promoting better health care.

Quite the opposite, in fact: it will leave 22 million uninsured, those who remain insured will lose key protections, and it is an outright attack on women and vulnerable communities and their health. Here are ten ways the Senate’s ACA Repeal Bill is heartless:

Slashes Medicaid Funding

Medicaid, a lifeline for 13 million women of reproductive age, covers 3/4s of all publicly funded family planning services. For more than 50 years, Medicaid always ...

The Senate is said to have pushed the vote on their “Better Care Reconciliation Act” (BCRA) until after the July 4th recess. I say: good. It’s a bad bill that has nothing to do with ...

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